Battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles generally include a high-voltage storage battery. In operation, the storage battery provides electric power to operate various components in the vehicle, such as an electric motor for driving traction wheels of the vehicle. The state-of-charge (SOC) of the battery decreases when the storage battery loses electric charge or discharges, which occurs primarily due to operation of the vehicle. When the storage battery discharges, it may be desirable or necessary to recharge the storage battery. Consequently, a power source external to the vehicle is often used to charge the storage battery to increase the overall SOC of the storage battery.
Various connector assemblies have been proposed to electrically connect the storage battery to the off-board power source for charging the storage battery. For example, the connector assembly may include a vehicle-side connector housing and vehicle-side terminals, which are often referred to together as the charge port. The charge port is often mounted on the body of the vehicle and the terminals are electrically connected to the storage battery of the vehicle. In addition, the connector assembly may include a power-source-side charging connector generally comprising a power-source-side connector housing and power-source-side terminals. The power-source-side connector housing mates with the vehicle-side connector housing so that the power-source-side terminals can connect to the vehicle-side terminals.
After mating of the charging connector and the charge port, a person may not want to closely supervise the battery charging process. For example, the person may not want to attend to ensuring the charging connector and the charge port remain properly mated during charging of the battery. Similarly, the person may not wish to attend to preventing other, unauthorized persons from interrupting charging of the battery.
After mating of the charging connector and the charge port, theft prevention or deterrence may be desirable or necessary. For example, preventing or deterring theft of the charging connector and/or the associated power cable. Furthermore, it may be beneficial to prevent or deter theft of electric power output from the charging source via the charging connector. For example, this may occur at a charging station when a first person leaves the vehicle unattended at the charging station and a second, unauthorized person decides to charge his vehicle using electric power owned by, paid for by, or otherwise associated with the first person.